Hero's Gravity
by 1ForThePriceOf2
Summary: Gravity. The force that controls humans' destinies and brings them to meet one another. Gravity decreed that Enrico Pucci be slain at Green Dolphin Street. Gravity decreed that Izuku Midoriya be born without a Quirk. In any other situation these circumstances would stop any further developments before they could start, but Gravity is not done with either of them quite yet.
1. Two Destinies

_-Enrico Pucci-_

Enrico Pucci was dying. There was no doubt about it, even if most of his senses had failed him at this point and he had already emptied his lungs with his last words. He couldn't see anymore, the capillaries inside his eyes having burst like fractured pipelines, nor could he feel his hands or feet. Yet he knew that only a few feet away from him was the child, Emporio, standing over him, accompanied by a very old acquaintance. Pucci's skull yielded under the immense pressure of Weather Report's fist, the studded knuckles grinding the bone into shards and the shards into dust and pulping precious brain matter like an overripe peach.

He had failed. He had been killed before returning to the Kennedy Space Centre. It was over.

Time seemed to slow down in that millionth of a second between earthly existence and oblivion. Ironic, considering the nature of his newborn power, but Pucci was willing to put aside a moment for some self-reflection. It was the last moment he would ever have on Earth, after all, so why not put it to use doing something that never failed to make him feel clearer, purer, more in tune with his faith? Perhaps it would quell the wild emotions within him a spell.

His first thoughts were, unsurprisingly, of the material world. This had always been somewhat embarrassing for the priest, for who should be better suited for turning to the spiritual, especially in a time like this, than a clergyman? Ah, well, it didn't matter. He'd get there eventually. Like he always did.

Thoughts of what was happening to his body assailed his mind like the locusts that plagued Egypt, buzzing obnoxiously and drowning out everything else in a sea of chirping, rasping noise. It hurt, easily more than any other physical pain he had experienced in his thirty nine years. And while Pucci never claimed to be a gambling man, he was willing to wager that the cocktail of humiliation and impotent rage surging through him didn't help the situation either.

The priest was fortunate, then, that the oxygen had already numbed his brain so. Or perhaps Weather's fist finally smashed something important. Even the searing pain in his lungs from inhaling so much of the poisonous gas, much like his life, was fading. Perhaps his last moments would at least be spent out of agony. A parting gift from fate, one might call it.

Fate. He never did manage to overcome it, did he? In the end he had only ever managed to rail hopelessly against it, and the notion swiftly converted much of his anger into sorrow, or perhaps disappointment. He had sacrificed so much to get to where he had been scant moments ago, a hair's width from his ultimate goal, when everything had been snatched away from him by the stone grip of that cruel, indomitable Titan named Destiny, just as DIO had before him. Just as Perla had. Defeat welled within him in a great geyser, though not specifically towards the blond child crushing his head. Instead it was more of a general feeling inspired by a lifetime of personal failures.

Would DIO forgive him for the failure of botching his most important plan, the heaven he had wanted Pucci to inherit? The ageless immortal had told Pucci of his long confinement beneath the rolling waves of the Atlantic, of the epiphanies he had had and the discoveries he had made. All of that had gone to waste the second Pucci entered the ghost room, allowing Emporio to spring his final gambit and reduce the heaven for humanity that had been _so close _to a mere pipe dream that would now never come to fruition. Would he even get to see DIO in the afterlife, at that? It was no secret to any who associated themselves with the vampire that his way of life and a fair few of his philosophies could not be said to align with God's teachings, so could his dear friend be paying penance in hell? Pucci would have shuddered at the notion. If that were true, what would become of his own afterlife after a lifetime of being the man DIO was closest to, the man who had decided to cut corners in his worship and commit sins even if they were for a greater good?

Had God's house and its residents even survived the reset?

Pucci had a theory - the more extraordinary you were, the crueller destiny was likely to be to you. An excellent example, he always felt, was Jesus Christ himself. When Jesus was nailed upon the cross he bore the burden of fate, as did Mother Mary when she lost her son. They were incredible people who touched the lives of many, even two thousand years after their time, and so were victim to a most gruesome set of challenges. By contrast, though there were various exceptions, the average person would probably experience nothing of the sort. How many revolutionaries and visionaries could claim to have had quiet, peaceful lives?

How wonderful it would have been to be one of the lucky ones, perhaps a few crimson fibres caught around their bodies here or there. Unfortunately for him, he and those around him seemed to be completely bound by them as gnats in a cobweb, the very nature of their lives demanding a story equal parts extraordinary and tragic. Wes' kidnapping, Perla's suicide, DIO's murder, could all be attributed to the unbreakable red strings that guided everyone in the world to some extent or another. The red strings he had devoted his life to defeating, and help others defeat their own in the process, had become his noose after all. How sickeningly poetic.

'_If this is my fate, if this is gravity… then I curse it.'_

And then the world was still.

…

For a while, at least. Then the world was red.

Red, everywhere. Reds of every imaginable shade bled from the surroundings, flooding his eyes with offensive scarlet hues. The onslaught of colour resurrected all of his senses and infiltrated them, painting them with bizarre, eldritch sensations that culminated as a redness that could not possibly be imagined by mortal men. He tried to squeeze his eyelids shut and push on them with his fingers, to rip his very eyes from their sockets, to do anything that would stop the assault on his vision. Alas, his body - or rather, his corpse - refused to move even the slightest bit. There was nothing he could do to escape, Pucci realised. He was powerless, a mere slave to this torture, doomed to a fate of descending deeper and deeper into the crimson nightmare. Surely, he _had_ gone to Hell.

* * *

After a time that Pucci wasn't sure was more like a few seconds or a hundred lifespans over, the swimming shades began to disperse slightly. While scarlet, vermillion and various other shades of red were still the dominant colour of the environment, making up the entirety of the vast, swirling vortex of a sky above him, different colours had started to pierce through the monochromatic veil and take various forms around him. Had he not been sent to Hell? Where was he?

He appeared to be staring up at a cheaply painted ceiling with visibly sloppy brush marks, in the centre of which was a lampshade decorated with the impossibly wide smile of a blond man with a face made of sharp angles. For whatever reason, looking at it for too long evoked the strangest feeling of disturbance.

Slowly sitting up as the last vestiges of redness faded, Pucci found that the rest of the small space was decorated with similar images of the same character. Through the darkness surrounding him he could see other faces here and there, but this grinning visage was definitely the most popular by a mile. Posters, figurines and every other imaginable breed of memorabilia were crammed wherever they would fit. There was even a full-body cardboard cutout poking out of a closet that fully displayed the man's inhumanly muscular figure and ridiculous costume. He knew that athleticism was an important factor in maintaining a healthy psyche and he could appreciate a good physique, but this was borderline insane. Whoever owned this room obviously had a very unhealthy obsession.

Before he could inspect anything further, the door a few feet in front of him swung open with a crash and revealed a short, stocky woman wearing a plain-looking red cardigan and long, green hair pulled in a ponytail. Panic was written over her face in the form of pouring sweat and wide eyes.

She rushed to his side and, to Pucci's boundless disbelief, snatched his hands up in a clammy grip that managed to be simultaneously vice-like and gentle and launched a torrent of foreign foreign words directly into his face. Despite his best efforts, the confused Father understood only the basics and got a mangled string of words for his trouble.

"Honey! I hear shouting! Okay? Hurt bad you, need hospital?!"

Pucci sat dumbfounded at the stout lady, unable to form even a basic sentence through his bafflement. Who was this woman, and why was she holding him and shouting in a barely understandable tongue? He had never met her in his life! Yet she was acting so peculiarly, treating Enrico like her own child that had just been grievously injured. A watery, salty film of anxiety brimmed at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill over, and her chest heaved in and out as hyperventilation took control of her lungs.

More than unnerved at the bizarre events unfolding before his eyes, Pucci snatched his hand away and summoned Made In Heaven, the platinum-coloured Stand hovering over his shoulder in a defensive position. The disconcertion in him was traded for determination as he decided that this middle-aged woman would be the one to tell him where he was and why he wasn't dead.

At least, he tried to. In reality he couldn't bring the limbs before him to move even the smallest amount no matter how desperately he tried, nor would his Stand appear. He couldn't feel the familiar sensation that tugged at his soul whenever he used Made In Heaven or the feeling of absolute holy power that surged through his being in when he brought it out. No, what actually happened was that he leaned forward against his own accord and wrapped his arms around the short woman in a tender hug and responded in a voice that wasn't his.

"Worry too much you, have bad dream no hurt," soothed the voice. It was young, shockingly so after spending decades used to the smooth, bassy tones of his adulthood. The tone was gentle and caring, and the love it held was obvious. At these words the woman's agitation visibly faded as the startled expression relaxed into more of a relieved one, though not completely.

"Tell truth you do? Lie not for make me calm?" she asked, her grip slightly tightening in response to her uncertainty.

"What son I would be, lie to you?" he smiled while pulling away. "Back sleep now, tired I. Please, fine I, promise."

At this the woman turned, shuffled out of the doorway and, with one last uneasy look, closed the door, leaving the yellow glow coming from the gap beneath it and a dim night light in the corner as the only sources of illumination.

Now left with only his thoughts and bereft of distractions, the full force of Pucci's panic was finally allowed to hit him like a freight train. What was going on?! Why couldn't he move?! More importantly, why couldn't he feel his Stand? He considered for a few terrifying moments the possibility that he had somehow lost it forever with his earlier demise, but quickly dashed the thought. Made In Heaven was a part of his soul, the all-important part of any person that made them truly alive and was imperative for existence as humans understood it, so the notion of it disappearing was laughable. He could still think and was undoubtedly self aware, so he hadn't lost his soul and thus he still had his Stand. Hadn't Whitesnake's ability proved as much in the past?

Still, that left the matter of his inability to move his body, or rather his inability to _control _it. It wasn't that he couldn't feel his body, far from it; every flex of a muscle, every brush of the bedding against his skin was as rich and vivid as if he was the one commanding them, going about his daily duties to the Lord and the various flavours of felon that would visit him back when he still worked at Green Dolphin Street. He could even feel the faint coldness, no doubt due to the sudden change from the warm embrace of gradually-heated bedsheets to the rest of the room. No, his concern was that while he could feel everything just fine, not one bit of it was under his control. From moving limbs or eyes right down to tensing a few muscle fibres, some force was barring him from any measure of authority as if under lock and key.

Reincarnation, the process in which a living soul was recycled into another physical vessel to start earthly life anew. It was a concept found in many of the world's religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, though the Bible preached the concept of permanent afterlife.

So many thoughts raced through Pucci's mind. Was that what this was? Did reincarnation, contrary to the Bible's teachings, exist after all, resulting in his imprisonment in a body that for all the world felt like his, but wasn't? He was aware that the Good Book sometimes contradicted itself and even held misinformation at points, no doubt a product of the materialistic greed of man corrupting the pure, so was it not possible that this important detail had been lost somewhere in history, never again to be read by Christian eyes?

But if this was reincarnation, then why was he unable to move what should have been his own body? This vessel was definitely being controlled by another person, another real soul that shouldn't have been where it was, an intruder in his realm. As far as he could tell they didn't suspect a thing, having made no attempt to communicate. Then again, it was possible that this young man knew exactly what was going on but was merely playing the fool for whatever end, wasn't it? Food for thought, and more than enough to put Enrico even more on his toes.

Pucci would have hummed in contemplation. Thinking about it, he didn't even have confirmation that this was the present he was in. For all he knew he was reliving the memories of some unimportant child across the Pacific from years ago, or even decades into the future. God worked in mysterious ways, after all, as did time.

What would he do with this information? More to the point, what _could_ he do with this information? It was obvious now that he couldn't control his body, at least not yet. And what of the consciousness that could? What fate would await him?

At least he recognised the dialect, though: Japanese. As a child his parents had constantly encouraged him to take every opportunity to learn something new, and during his time training in the clergy there was certainly no shortage of educational material. His expeditions into the wide world of verbal communication had started with Italian on account of his Sicilian heritage, but why stop there? Eventually he had learned the basics of a fair few languages, Japanese included among them.

Once the sound of the short woman's footsteps against the aged wooden floorboards vanished, the pair of arms attached to him reached out into the darkness and flipped a switch somewhere on the wall. New light flooded the room, the sudden brightness burning his eyes and forcing him to squint. The body pushed itself up and walked over to a small mirror on a shelf Pucci hadn't noticed until now. What he saw within, had he retained control of his body, would have made him double-take.

Looking back at him was not the handsome, angular visage of dark Sicilian skin framed with neatly-trimmed white hair and sideburns, but the frail and meek-looking face of a young teenager, every bit as flimsy and defenceless as a newborn deer born to an emaciated doe. Gone were his thin cheeks, sharp nose and captivating stare, replaced with juvenile features such as a smooth jaw and anxious eyes so wide that looked like they belonged in a cupboard of dinner plates rather than on any human. Dark green hair - how very odd - flowed in every direction in an unchecked mass of curls and patchy freckles dotted both cheeks.

'_How embarrassing.'_

Pucci could only observe as the person in the mirror proceeded to give themselves a full facial examination, stretching the skin to every possible angle as if looking for some type of disease. He would have found the entire process insufferably dull were it not for the fact that he noticed something lurking just beneath the collar of the red, white and blue pyjamas he wore. A bruise, dark and ugly and greenish around the edges, blemished the otherwise pale skin of the boy's neck like a blot of ink spilled onto a blank canvas, seeping deep into the fibres and spreading its black influence wherever its many tendrils could reach.

The ritual continued on for about five more minutes by Pucci's reckon, during which the green-haired teenager had examined every part of his face right down to the roof of his mouth. It appeared to be for naught, however, as the boy promptly let out a sigh of resignation before trudging back to his bed and flopping down on top of it. Pucci's last thoughts were of curiosity before he felt the new body sink into the sheets, succumbing to slumber's sultry seductions and dragging him into a world of darkness.

But, just like before, it didn't stay dark for long. The infinite depths of the void quickly receded and gave way to one of the most concurrently captivating and baffling things the ancient undead had ever laid eyes upon. He stood on a flat plane beneath a shifting sky of muted, misty rainbow hues that melted in and out of shapes in a manner not dissimilar to a stained glass window in a chapel, except constructed entirely out of oysters' pearls that had been animated with vital energy of their own. The ground he found himself on was perfectly level to the most precise measurement and looked to be constructed of smooth, pale marble plastered with dappled patterns, though these ones were considerably more stationary than the enigmatic ceiling above. Off in the distance was a horizon that stretched off further than he could see, blurring off into nothingness long before he could get anywhere near to seeing where it ended, if it did at all.

But wait, something felt profoundly different about himself. His eyes were drawn downwards and, to no small amount of rapture, Pucci found that he was back in his own body once again. Barely believing his fortunate turn, he went to verify it, and nearly burst out in joyful laughter when his arms raised at his command. The extremities that greeted him were not the bone-thin arms of a meek teenager wrapped in the sun-deprived skin of a shut-in, but toned, powerful limbs clothed in rich purple fabric and ending in a pair of hands dark with the familiar shade of Sicily. Further down his body was the beginning of a broad cross of golden fabric that shone in whatever mysterious illumination found him, as wide and well-muscled as he remembered, and moving even further led him onto the lower body, legs and feet that were definitely there but all hidden beneath his priestly gown.

His hands moved up to his head and ran over soft, short patches occasionally separated with grooves that he knew made up his unique hairstyle. Enrico smiled. It was good to be home.

To Pucci it felt almost like reuniting with an old friend. After the initial euphoria wore off enough to allow rational thought, however, he noticed that his hair had actually changed since he'd last seen it. After fusing himself with the baby born from DIO's bone his hair had inexplicably changed designs, with the grooves moving to an entirely different position, his eyelashes thickening and his facial hair growing into a star shape on his forehead. Now, though, he could feel none of that. It was gone. Everything had returned to how it had been before. A quick pat on the back of his neck verified that even the long ponytails he had developed were no longer there either.

"WAH! W-Who are you?! Where am I?!"

Before Pucci's growing concern could mature any further a shrill voice yanked him from his train of thought. He spun around, adopting a combat stance and a stony expression in preparation for the combat to be. However, both faded instantly after he realised exactly who was standing across from him. After all, just those few minutes meant that he'd recognise the unruly mop of green hair, wide eyes and scrawny figure anywhere. Staring back from a mere few feet away, his face suffused with fear, was the boy in the mirror.

* * *

_-Izuku Midoriya-_

Somewhere in the sprawling city of Musutafu a young man glanced at the time on his phone and sighed. The sun was getting ready to sink down behind the city skyline, its deep orange glow seeping into the surrounding clouds and casting long shadows over the metropolis. Many individual noises intermingled to form an urban ambience and the familiar scents of exhaust fumes, cooking and about a hundred other olfactory flavours tickled his nostrils. There was a chill to the wind characteristic of this time of year which nipped at his nose and cheeks like a child seeking constant attention.

Midoriya sighed again as he continued his steady slog home. He hadn't expected to take this long, but like most things in his life, it was what it was. He'd been attending cram school to try and boost his grades - not to say they were particularly bad, but his mother always said that every little helps - and had then been roped into helping clean up. Well, he said helping, but his 'teammates' had promptly abandoned him to take care of work fit for three people on his own. To top it all off, Kacchan and his friends had cornered him after finally walking out and… well, the ever-present throb of his neck intensified at the memory. So, here he was, red sneakers plodding forth one after the other over the uneven asphalt-

"Gah!"

A car flew by barely a metre away from the plucky fifteen year old's face, the artificial wind sending his hair into a frenzy and the pure fright knocking him flat onto his rear. The automobile's horn blared angrily as the driver stuck their arm out of the window and flipped him a rather rude hand signal. "Watch the road, you damn kid!" they yelled over the sound of their vehicle before they turned a corner and disappeared for good.

Izuku went to apologise like always, but his voice trailed off once the futility of calling after a driver that had already vanished from sight dawned on him. "Oh, what's the point?" he mumbled dejectedly as he dusted himself off and crossed the road, this time keeping a cautious eye out for any speeding boxes of metal and crass drivers.

He counted himself lucky as the car drove away - a second earlier and it would've reduced him to a red smear on the road. Ah, well, at least the towering apartment block before him meant he was home now. Maybe his mom wouldn't be too worried this time.

One climb of a concrete stairwell later and Izuku was standing in front of his apartment door, the veneer surface sun-bleached from overlong exposure. A silvery key was clutched between his fingers and glinted in the overhead light, trembling slightly. Taking a deep breath, the greenette mentally prepared himself for the oncoming storm as he slid the metal tool into the lock and turned.

The moment he put the key in the door it swung inwards, very nearly carrying the short student with it, and revealed an extremely worried-looking Inko Midoriya. Her face was pale and dripping with sweat, and her hands were clasped at her chest in a white-knuckled death grip.

"IZUKU! Oh, thank the lord you're home! You weren't back for dinner and I started getting worried but you didn't return any of my calls and then it started to get dark out and I started thinking maybe I should call the police-"

For the second time in five minutes, Izuku Midoriya sighed. It had been a long day, and from how things were shaping up it wasn't going to end any time soon.

* * *

Dinner was a fairly normal affair. A hearty meal of rice, fish and vegetables had been lovingly prepared by his mom, which the two of them polished off in short order what with Izuku having not eaten since lunch and Inko being unable to eat while as worried as she had been. The older woman had peppered her son with question after question in an odd sort of manner, showing concern but trying to rein herself in so as to not smother her child.

Did he tell her the truth? How today had been one pitfall after another? How Kacchan had added to his collection of bruises and welts for the mere fact that he was Quirkless? No, of course not. She didn't deserve that. She'd just end up worrying even more and running herself ragged as though she didn't already do that every day at work just to keep a roof over their heads. To her, he'd had another average day at school where he behaved, learned and didn't get walked over by just about every Quirked kid in the school. A difficult lie to tell, but a necessary one.

As of now, the duo of mother and son were about finished with the cleanup. They stood near the sink with their forearms submerged in soapy water, suds falling off of both them and the dishes they scrubbed in chubby white clumps.

Izuku pushed the final cleaned plate away from himself. "Uh, Mom? May I be excused?" He didn't usually just leave after doing the bare minimum like this and would instead stay and take over his mother's work while waving off her protests about fairness, but after the disaster of a day he'd just endured the only thing he wanted was to sleep.

Inko, who had been daydreaming into her own pile of dishes, started and looked up. "What? Oh, yes, that's fine. Go ahead, sweetie."

Izuku frowned as he dried himself off with the nearest towel. His mother had a sort of depressed look on her face, the sort a person gets when something bad's happening but there's not a thing they can do about it. He set down the towel and moved over to his mother. Sleep could wait just a bit longer.

"I love you, Mom," he said, and wrapped his arms around her in a loving embrace. He poured every bit of his affection into it, and secretly half-hoping that it would convey the emotions he so desperately wanted to voice but couldn't find the courage for.

Inko looked shocked for a split second before softly smiling and returning the squeeze. "I love you too, honey. Now go on, you look tired and I can handle the rest myself."

The younger Midoriya nodded, planted one last kiss on her cheek and headed off towards his room. The door closed behind him and a light switch flicked on, dousing the darkness and revealing the sacred safe haven that was his room.

And what a room it was. Well over a decade of unhalted hoarding of hero-themed memorabilia crammed wall to wall with all sorts of hero merchandise. From every inch of every space the always-jovial face of All Might stared back at him with his trademark impossibly wide grin, radiating pure confidence from each scattered sheet of paper and plastic toy. Practically speaking, however, it was a more simple affair. A single computer, quite the dinosaur by modern standards, sat on a desk against the wall. A modest wardrobe had been crammed into the corner next to a bed, the latter of which was decorated with yet more All Might. Reaching into the closet's interior, the green-haired boy's hand found what he was looking for and tugged it out to behold in all the yellow-tinted light's glory: his limited edition All Might pyjamas. Slipping his school uniform off and exchanging it for the red, white and blue bedclothes, Izuku could feel the urge to strike a heroic pose coursing red-hot through his veins.

Unfortunately, the urge to sleep was stronger still.

Izuku flopped down onto the mattress with all of the grace and beauty of a dead sloth, making it squeak in protest as it adapted to his weight. He just happened to collide face-first with the Top Hero's grinning visage, the contrast of his shaded eyes and incandescent smile the only thing he could see.

'_Don't listen to what anyone else says, keep your chin up and keep charging ahead, was it…?'_ he mused as he blinked away some uninvited tears. '_This is the path I've chosen, so I guess I'll just do like the Pro Heroes do, and tough it out!'_ With one last muffled "ha, ha ha," into the bedsheets, Izuku's consciousness faded and he nodded off.

…

Pain!

Painpainpainpainpainpain!

PAIN!

Izuku writhed and howled in agony as his vision turned a bright shade of red and sent scarlet waves of pain through his being. Red, red, red was the only thing he could see, the only think he could hear, taste, smell, think about. All of the muscles in his body tightened like coiled wires as he tried to claw at his face when even squeezing them tightly enough to hurt did naught to halt the crimson onslaught. Alas, the sensory overload made it nigh impossible to think, let alone force his paralysed limbs to obey him. The agony was far greater than anything else he had ever experienced in his life; it was as if he had been thrust into a pool of boiling blood.

What was this? When would it stop? _Would_ it stop? Izuku could only barely comprehend these concepts as he was ravaged from the inside by the redness that grasped and clutched and cut and scraped and stabbed him from the inside. The only thing left of his mind at that moment was one of the most basic instincts humankind possessed - flight. The need to run, to call for help, to do anything to escape the torture he was in! Anything! Anyone!

_Help!_

_HELP!_

"_Emporio! Don't let him do this! My ability that I've finally gained…!"_

"_YOU INSIGNIFICANT BRAT!"_

But then, as quickly as it had appeared, the agonising redness vanished without a trace. There was no residual soreness, he could see things other than that terrifying crimson veil and his body was no longer locked in one position. Daring to sit up in spite of the fear that he'd just incite another fit, Izuku took a brief moment to check that he hadn't died and gone to the afterlife or something. Yep, there was the cardboard All Might peeking out of the closet - had he dislodged that when he fetched his pyjamas? - a poster of Hawks the Wing Hero, a few Endeavours scattered amongst their fellow Pro Hero figurines… Yes, this was definitely his room, the comforting constant where nothing ever changed and there were no unpleasant surprises.

Beads of cold sweat rolled down his face. Raising his hand to his chest, he gave the stylised sleep shirt a pat test and groaned at the results. Sodden. Still, though, that problem was considerably lower on his list of priorities than the top two questions currently running rampant through his head: what was that redness, and who was that talking at the very end? If he remembered rightly, they had been pleading with someone, their name was… Emporio?

He almost jumped out of his skin when his door flew open with a resounding crash as it hit the corner of the computer desk and almost dislodged a tiny All Might from his perch, ripping him away from his thoughts in a flash. With speed unseen from the stocky woman since she was about twenty kilos lighter, she rushed over to her son and snatched up his hands in her own.

"Honey! I heard you shouting! Are you okay?! Are you hurt anywhere?! Do you need the hospital?!"

Izuku immediately moved in for a gentle and comforting hug, stopping his mother's breathless ramble in its tracks when he enclosed her short body in an embrace.

"I'm fine, Mom. I just had a bad dream, it's okay," he soothed, patting her softly on the back and looking into her green eyes that shone with tears ready to fall at a moment's notice. It wasn't a lie, either. No matter how vivid it had been, that suffocating red veil had to have been a dream, otherwise he would've been left with at least some fleeting ghost of a pain as unbearably horrific as that, surely.

"You really mean that, Izuku? You're not just lying for my sake or anything, are you? You can tell me anything, you know," she prompted, waiting for her son to respond with baited breath.

"What kind of son would lie to their mom?" he joked, hoping to dilute the tension somewhat. "I'm gonna try and go back to sleep now since I'm pretty tired. Trust me, please. I'm fine, I promise."

She looked like she was about to protest, but seemed to decide against it as she shut the door behind her and left Izuku alone in the darkness. Once her footsteps disappeared back towards the kitchen, the teenager stood from his bed, flicked on the light and walked over to his mirror. There were a few things that he needed to check.

It sounded weird, but behind all the pain there had been something _more_, distinctly of substance that the swimming splotches of crimson didn't have. The closest thing Izuku could compare it to was seeing, say, a plastic cube amongst a pile of paper squares, which was admittedly a pretty crappy metaphor but the best that his shaken-up mind could formulate at that time. For a brief moment he'd been lucid enough to notice it, and for that brief moment it was as if he'd transformed. And it had all felt so _real_. His toothpick arms had been replaced with those of a man clad in powerful muscle, his curly mop discarded in favour of a hairstyle so short it felt skintight, and he could have sworn he'd had facial hair. And the _emotions_, the pure, undiluted, raw feelings of defiance and power… In that second, he'd gone from a skinny weakling to a god.

Obviously he couldn't trust what was most likely some sort of unnaturally vivid nightmare, and he certainly didn't, but something at the back of his mind just would let up nagging until he gave it the time of day and looked in the mirror. At the very least, doing it would mean one less distraction from a nice eight hours of sleep.

* * *

Just as he expected, the five minutes of searching turned up absolutely zilch. No built muscles, no short hair and certainly no wounded right eyes were to be found. He was, without a doubt, the same old short, weak, Quirkless Izuku Midoriya he'd been for fourteen years. He let out a disappointed huff as he walked back to bed and clambered under the quilt, too miffed to pay any mind to his sweaty clothing. If anything good came from that fit of his, it would have been the sadly temporary sensation of power it had given him. He'd actually dared to dream that it was some sort of extremely late sign of his Quirk blooming. How stupid. But it was okay to dream, wasn't it? Of course, he'd been dreaming constantly ever since that fateful day at the doctor's office ten years ago.

And speaking of dreams, this was shaping up to be a particularly pretty one. At some point he'd fallen asleep without noticing and was now standing on a flat plane of pure white stone under a multicoloured sky that was like viewing a rainbow through ten camera filters.

'_This is sort of odd, but nice,'_ thought Izuku, '_I guess I can enjoy this for a while.'_

At least, that's what he thought until he pivoted around and saw a man clad in a long, purple coat with his back turned to him. As soon as Izuku laid eyes on him the dreamlike atmosphere faded and was replaced by a cool chill that permeated down to his very soul. He didn't know why, but some primal instinct began to activate in the form of a crescendo of alarm bells going off all through his mind. This man… Something about him wasn't right. Thinking about it, something about this whole place wasn't right. The crystal-clear images, the lucidity, the sharpness of every sensation… This felt far too real to be just a normal dream!

"WAH! W-Who are you?! Where am I?!" Izuku yelled before thinking, an action he immediately regretted when the man whipped around to face him.

The first thing he noticed was the man's skin, darker than the ethnic Japanese Izuku commonly saw on the streets. He was tall, much more so than average as he likely neared the two metre mark. Hair whiter than freshly fallen snow clung to his scalp in a bizarre design with clearly artificial canyons shaved in between individual islands of hair and thin sideburns leading to his jaw, while the ankle-length garb, now exposed as an expensive-looking priest's robe, covered everything above his plain leather shoes with a slightly elevated heel. Glossy black irises bored directly into Izuku's own with a strength that glued the young man in place, the pale brows above them furrowed into a tight, contemplative crease that ended up coming off to one fear-addled mind as malevolent, as if weighing whether it would be better to observe Izuku further or simply tear him to shreds.

A pang of pure, undiluted terror passed through him. This wasn't like the comparatively tame fear of simple bodily harm he felt when he was confronted by Kacchan, either. No, this was completely different. For the first time ever, Izuku Midoriya truly feared for his life.

* * *

**Hello readers old and new, and welcome to my new story! Many of you may remember **_**The Furthest Thing From A Hero**_**, the JoJo/MHA story that I abandoned in favour of this one. I believe that this reboot of that will turn out better than the original ever could, and I'm excited to finally share this version of the story. By the way, I've decided Pucci's dark skin tone is due to his canonical Sicilian heritage in this story, which I'd say is most likely anyway given Araki's boner for all things Italian. You wouldn't believe how vague actual information on Pucci's descent is. **

**I want to make it clear that this won't be a ripoff of the popular JoJo/MHA story **_**Filthy Acts Done At A Reasonable Price**_**. It may not be finished, but from what's already published I can safely say I'm going down a different route. Nevertheless, if anyone knows about any other similar stories to this one then I would ask them to please inform me so I don't accidentally end up making a carbon copy.**

**Thanks for reading, and please don't hesitate to leave any criticism. It's the only way I'll improve, after all.**


	2. Encounter

_-Enrico Pucci-_

Warily, Pucci studied the mop-haired teenager in front of him. Whereas he had noticed it while staring in the mirror, now that Pucci was back in his original form the child's scrawniness was painfully evident. Approximately half a foot shorter than him, likely more, and with loose pyjamas that fell around a wiry frame and only accentuated what little in the way of muscle mass there was, Pucci could tell that this was a person who had been cursed with a naturally weak body. Add to that the abundant distress radiating from every pore and he seemed every bit the defenceless animal falling back on fight-or-flight instincts. Pucci felt the urge to grimace, but held it back. What a difficult situation. Fortunately, he was well-versed in handling such situations.

Experience decreed that the best way to proceed would be with firm tenderness, to become a fist of gentle iron that would shepherd the mind away from any fear or doubt and into a pasture of calmness that could form the foundation for further, more sophisticated conversation. He went to take a slow, short step forward.

"S-Stop! Get away! Don't come closer!" The child shrank back, his voice far more of a high-pitched squeak than when he'd heard it in the bedroom. Pucci paused mid-stride and held the awkward stance for a few tense seconds before complying, withdrawing his foot back to its original position. The youth's defence didn't ease in response.

'_Hm, I hadn't expected it to be this bad. Usually they let me approach just a little,'_ thought the priest, biting the edge of his tongue. '_I suppose I'll have to do it from here.'_

Still, that had been English just then, plain and clear. He found it hard to believe that such a young foreigner would be so fluent in a language so different from his own, especially without any hint of an accent whatsoever. That implied that Pucci wouldn't have to make the effort to speak broken Japanese, surely? He had to try.

"What is the first of the prime numbers?" Pucci called out, catching the youth's attention. So there was an understanding between them. His voice was clear and untouched by emotion, as if an automaton had asked it, yet demanding attention in a way only someone versed in the art of conversation could have.

"…Huh?" The boy paused, confused, but kept his guard well up.

"What is the first prime number? You are aware of what they are, yes?"

The boy took a laboured swallow, then nodded. "T-Two. I-It's two."

"Correct! I'm impressed. Most people say one, but as you know, a prime number must have two separate factors, so one doesn't count." Pucci nodded with a soft, encouraging grin, glad his attempt to calm the child had succeeded.

"Um, thanks? I've always been good at maths, I guess. And chemistry. And biology, and physics, and history, especially modern history since it's got a lot to do with the emergence of…" The priest couldn't hear what what had emerged, though, since his present company's voice dipped below audible levels as sentences mixed together into one unintelligible muttered jumble. He supposed he'd have to interrupt.

"Young man…" Pucci began in the tone he reserved for serious situations, cool and with a touch of authority, softer than what he'd began with. The teenager's eyes flicked back up, startled out of their intensive daydreaming. "…what is your name?"

"Huh? Why are you…" the sentence trailed off at the end, getting thick with apprehension again. Pucci raised both palms in front of him in a placating manner.

"I think it would be best if we were to exchange names. I'll go first. My name is Father Enrico Pucci, though you may simply call me by any combination of those if you'd prefer it."

"I'm Midoriya. Izuku Midoriya," the boy gulped. His posture relaxed just a bit, and the corners of Pucci's lips rised ever so slightly more. Good.

"I see. It's a pleasure to meet you, Izuku." However, his faint smile faded when the boy, now Izuku, seemed to flinch. "Is something the matter? Did I say something I shouldn't have?"

'_You're forming a connection, Enrico. Don't lose him.'_

"W-Well, it's nothing major, it's just that you called me by my own name and not my family name."

Pucci frowned, confused, before realisation dawned on him. "Of course, I'm sorry. I'm used to referring to people as I would a friend I've known for some time. It comes with the territory, you see. Would Midoriya suit you better?" the priest apologised, gesturing to his clerical collar. He'd forgotten that the Japanese considered it impolite to call a new acquaintance by their first - last? - name. Should he have added an honorific onto it, too?

Apparently it was unneeded, as Midoriya nodded. "Yeah, if that's okay." Then his posture became stiff once more. "Still, you haven't told me why I'm here, or where here even is. Is this your Quirk?"

Enrico's head cocked ever so slightly, too slightly for Midoriya to notice. Quirk? Was this child talking about a Stand power? It seemed only rational, what else could cause such a phenomenon as this? But then Pucci would have assumed it was the boy's own latent Stand, something most unlikely now that he had possibly expressed knowledge of their existence but not of his own ability, though there still a chance. There were too many possibilities, too many pitfalls that Enrico could walk into all too easily like a blind man walking straight over a cliff.

Regardless of the true reality, the best thing now would be to hold his cards close to his chest and play it as safe as possible. Best to simply feign understanding on whatever a Quirk was, just in case it was common knowledge. "No, I'm not causing this. I assume you are not, either. It's a mystery to me," he spoke, not untruthfully. "Where were you before coming here?"

"Me? Just getting ready for bed. I, um, have the pyjamas to prove it." Midoriya plucked at the stylised shirt with considerable embarrassment, face turning red. That made sense, a person of his age would probably be looked down upon by his peers for wearing such a thing. "What about you?"

'_Hm, what to say? I can hardly tell him I'd been resetting the universe before getting killed by my deceased brother's Stand not ten minutes ago.'_

"I was in my bedroom, reading a book. I think I dozed off," Pucci said while keeping his expression perfectly balanced through the lie. Midoriya hummed in contemplation, fingers supporting his chin and green eyes staring off at the great nothing that surrounded them. A good sign, hopefully.

"So we've both been transported to wherever this is, and it's not your Quirk, and we were both sleeping, or at least going to sleep…" Midoriya looked back at a Pucci and raised a finger. "I think I've heard of this before, in books and on the internet. Some people say it's possible for two individuals to share dreams, no matter how far apart they are, and cases have been reported even before Quirks emerged but never confirmed. Do you think that might be what's happening?"

"Well, I hadn't considered the possibility. I've never thought such a thing possible given that there's no real explanation for it." Pucci bit the inside of his cheek, knowing full well that likely wasn't the case. "Though our world contains many secrets that humans like ourselves cannot know, and we're here right now. Ruling out such a possibility would be folly."

Midoriya was already in his own world, though. "Hm, this would be huge news to the scientific community, no, the whole world. Instant, untraceable face-to-face communication over long distances without the need for a specific person's Quirk could mean the end of things like mobile phones, possibly even being used as the next step in Internet technology…"

Pucci released a breath. Would this be a constant occurrence? Hopefully not, he had only know the boy for a handful of minutes and twice already had he been lost in whatever speculations took hold of his mind at that moment.

"It is a conundrum, to be sure," the priest intoned, "but perhaps we should be focusing on our current circumstances? We currently know nothing of how long this will last or if we're the only ones here."

"O-Oh. That makes sense. Sorry." Midoriya's cheeks flushed. "So, um, what should we do now, um, Father Pucci?"

"Well, you may not agree with me, but I believe a good way to start something is to pick the best direction and walk in it."

"What's that mean?"

"It means quite literally what I said, Midoriya," smiled the purple-robed clergyman. '_Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.'_ Proverbs three, verses five to six, a very literal interpretation in this case. There is nothing here for us presently, so why not take a walk in whatever direction feels best?

"So, you're… saying we should go for a walk?" Midoriya's eyebrows knotted, unconvinced. It seemed even a mild-mannered mouse of a person like him could voice some heavy skepticism when the occasion called for it. Pucci gave a dignified shrug.

"What else is there to do? We've nothing to lose and walking is a proven method for clearing one's mind. Who knows, one of us may have an epiphany along the way. You can even choose the direction if you'd like."

Uncertainty had taken firm root in the timid teenager ever since this encounter had begun, and now it was clear just how deeply. It was present everywhere from his downturned face to his clenched fists, the muscles tensing and intending ever so slightly as he mulled over his options over the course of silent seconds emphasised by the emptiness that would or would not be ventured into.

Finally, he looked up to Pucci's patient eyes. "Well, in that case… let's go that way," he said, setting off in the chosen direction as the priest followed close behind.

And so they walked, side by side, through the endless marble plateau, the sky's colours washing in an out of each other like so many shades of oil paint mixed within a glass chalice. It was unclear to both of them just how much time had passed, and not just because they lacked a watch. This dreamscape, if that's what the place was, had no sense of time progression. The absence of an actual star in the sky meant that it was completely detached from a conventional timescale; as much was evident when neither knew when minutes had started bleeding into hours.

"Ah, I'm so tired…" Midoriya groaned, dropping to his rear and rubbing his calves. "This place goes on forever. I mean, it's a physics-defying shared illusion produced by our minds, so I guess that makes sense, but still…"

"It is… frustrating, to be sure, but do not give up, Midoriya. Faith alone can and has sustained people on the harshest of pilgrimages."

Midoriya just groaned again.

"…Although I suppose a break wouldn't go amiss."

The priest lowered himself onto the ground across from his greenette companion of chance in a cross-legged position, taking care not to crease his robe. "I presume you aren't accustomed to walking long distances?"

"I'm not accustomed to anything like this, actually. I'm really bad at PE, and I never tried getting fit on my own." The boy sounded a little embarrassed as he said this, but there was a hint of sadness in there as well.

"Physical prowess isn't all there is to life." Pucci offered a smile. "You may not be the best at endurance running, or weightlifting, or basketball, but you make up for it with a sharp mind."

Midoriya cocked his head. "What do you mean? You haven't even known me for a day."

"And yet in that time you've proven yourself able to adapt quickly to a new and potentially dangerous situation, panicking only for a few short minutes before putting aside those detrimental feelings to work on moving forward. That is an incredible feat for any man, never mind one of your young age. In my experience, such unfaltering command over oneself is a key characteristic who is destined to go far. Destined, I say."

But the boy shook his head. "You don't understand, Father Pucci. There's more to it than that. It goes further than being strong or weak, or smart or stupid. It's not just a matter of getting better at one thing or another, because I'm missing something that you can't just _develop_. I was born one step behind everyone else. It's made me stand out from the crowd since I was four years old."

Pucci struggled to find any words. What did this totally average child - sans the green hair - mean by 'born a step behind everyone else'? Could it be to do with those Quirks he kept mentioning? More than that, what part of the supposed birth defect could possibly make him a social pariah to the point where he had been the victim of vicious discrimination? Enrico could see it in his eyes, the effects of such a harsh childhood; they swam with sorrow and weariness that did not belong in the eyes of someone so young.

"Young Midoriya…" Pucci began, selecting his words carefully, "if you speak the truth, then there are things you cannot do, more so than others. I don't presume to know exactly what that is, and I won't ask. Like all humans, you are burdened by fate."

"Fate?" Midoriya asked with puzzlement in his voice. Pucci continued.

"But that is not a completely negative thing, for those tightly bound by their fates have the opportunity to _grow_. By continuing to forge onward despite the hardships you experience you will mature. The people around you, the average everyday person whose actions are ultimately insignificant in the grand scheme of things, will never obtain the drive that you have, and so will be stuck in a state of stagnation while you rise above and beyond. My own fate has brought me into contact with many unique people. I can tell you count in their number, Midoriya. I can feel the determination in you to hold your head high and put one foot in front of the other.

"You are compelled to do so, yes? You want something, honestly want it with every fibre of your being, there is more than emotion driving you. It feels like a force beyond your understanding has taken hold of your soul and won't let go?"

"I-I…" Midoriya whispered. It seemed that Pucci's speech had made at least some impact. "But that sounds sort of like magical thinking. I mean, fate? No offence, but how do you know it even exists?"

"…It was shown to me by a dear friend. His teachings have never failed me in the past, and I have no reason to start doubting them. I know you haven't witnessed the things I have so your lack of faith is understandable, but I promise you that if you overcome the hand you've been dealt by fate and keep pursuing that force that steers you, then you will come to understand the same things as me." Pucci rested two fingers on his chin. "It's like I said, if you think that everyone feels the same otherworldly attraction as you do then you are wrong. You are _unique_, you will achieve great things that have great impact on the world, leaving it a very different place than the one you found.

"Think of it this way. You can go on as you have, pursuing that goal, that force deep within you telling you 'go', and see if what I have told you comes to pass despite your proclamations that you can't do it because of this disadvantage. Even if you don't believe in fate, doing so would only be logical, no?"

For a long while Midoriya was silent. He and the priest sat across from each other, saying nothing, not moving. Time passed slowly yet did not drag on, and the silence was exceedingly pronounced in the barren dreamscape yet not uncomfortable. The two merely rested, contemplating this existence, soothing their hot muscles on the cool stone's kiss, listening to the ever-present sound of nothing.

Eventually, by the scrawny greenette whose eyes were still on the floor the lengthy pause was broken. "Father Pucci…" The priest looked up and motioned for continuation.

"I've been thinking about what you said. About fate. You're right that when I think about being a hero I feel something I can't really describe. Maybe it's that feeling you were talking about and I'll always keep on going no matter what, but… can I ask you something?"

"By all means. As a member of the Church I am sworn to confidentiality."

"Okay…" Midoriya took a deep breath and released it over the course of seconds, fiddling with his pyjamas before finally finding the effort to continue.

"Father Pucci, do you think someone who's Quirkless can become a hero?"

What? A hero? As in a superhero straight out of a comic book series with a cape and spandex? Surely he was joking, or talking about becoming a world-renowned doctor, or perhaps a humanitarian aid worker, anything that could be described as a hero. Yet the way he said it implied that 'hero' was not so much a label earned from doing something extraordinary, but an actual job title itself. He was too old to believe that heroes actually existed, right?

"I don't really like saying it out loud," he continued, "it's really embarrassing. I sort of figured you would have understood by now, but I guess not. Maybe you're just too good of a person to see the down points in people?"

And what were these Quirks that his green companion kept mentioning? The more Pucci heard about them, the more they sounded like special abilities, superpowers even, and the likeliest explanation for that could be that they were actually Stands under an alternate moniker. Then again, DIO's vampirism and the ancient sunlight breathing technique of his old friend's adoptive sibling were both a far cry from a vision of one's spirit made manifest.

But those thoughts were unwelcome now, for there was an answer still expected of him. He battled his uncertainty and the urge to swallow born from it, instead settling for a quick mental recital of the first few prime numbers. '_2, 3, 5, 7, 11.'_ He knew nothing solid about what a Quirk was, and the boy before him spoke of them as if they were so common that not knowing about them would be as peculiar as someone being perplexed by the concept of a faucet. How could he handle this without blowing his apparently very delicate facade?

Before Pucci could formulate any substantial, believable reply, however, he was bailed out in the form of a sudden impenetrable blackness that overtook the landscape. First to go was the surreal sky, colours blotted out in mere seconds as though someone had turned off a TV screen. The ground was not far behind. A front of blackness was visibly swallowing up the horizon and closing in further by the second, a tidal wave of ink spilled from its pot onto paper racing towards the happenstantial pair of which one had already leapt to their feet.

"W-W-What's happening?!" Izuku cried, frantically glancing around in a circle like a cornered animal. The world was rapidly shrinking, the black maw surging forth and threatening to devour them whole, and the boy's demeanour did their situation justice.

Pucci, however, did not rise from his seat. Despite bearing witness to the same spectacle as his younger companion he held no fear; they would not die today. Fate had him saved for a reason, fate had him dropped alongside Izuku Midoriya for a reason, and he had faith that whatever that reason ended up being, it would not be to drown in palpable shadow. No, Enrico Pucci knew his new journey would not end so abruptly when there was clearly much more holy work to be done.

"Calm yourself, Midoriya," he said, the lack of tension in his voice more fitting a calm stroll through a meadow than the current situation. "We are not here by random chance. This meeting was orchestrated, and is only the beginning of our journey. Gravity itself decrees this will not end us."

"Gravity?! What are you talking-"

* * *

_-Izuku Midoriya-_

"-about?!" Izuku bolted upright, looking around as he waved his hands before his face in a final attempt to cheat the rapidly approaching black veil of death. After a little longer than he would have liked to admit he realised that he was back in his own room, right where he'd gone to sleep on his bed the night before.

"I am here! I am here! I am here!"

The All Might clock on his bedside table flashed six thirty in the morning and blared its usual electronic chorus of the Pro Hero's signature catchphrase. Izuku lowered his arms and scratched at the sleep in his eyes as he hoisted his suddenly very heavy body off of the mattress and beckoned in the new day with a loud stretch.

He snuck past his mother's room, not wanting to disturb her rest on her day off, and made himself breakfast. It was a simple ensemble consisting of white rice and some of the previous night's leftovers plus a glass of orange juice. Fortunate that his mother had an unshakeable habit of preparing too much food for dinner and ended up with enough leftovers that they could probably feed a baby rhino for a week. While his body shovelled bite after bite into his mouth, his mind began to wander.

Father Pucci. Now that he wasn't focusing all of his effort into not looking like a slob in front of the only person besides his mother and the odd sympathetic teacher to show genuine interest in what he had to say for over a year, it began to dawn on him just how… _different_ the clergyman had been, in every possible respect. True to a man of his profession he had been so pleasant, truly kind and compassionate. The priest had treated him like a real human being worthy of attention and respect instead of just a Quirkless drain on the world around him, not even fit to breathe the same air as his 'evolved' peers. And that speech at the end… So taken had Izuku been at those words, when his innermost desire had been connected to unlike anyone had before, revealing depths to Izuku's dream he didn't know others shared and speaking of them as if they were kindred spirits…

But then, was it real? It certainly _felt_ real. He could remember every single detail as if he were only just there, from the cool kiss of granite against his soles to the sharp, dry burning of his lungs on their long march to nowhere. However, the empty space he'd been sent to was surely a fabrication of his exhausted mind, for no such place could possibly exist unless he had fallen under the effects of some dream-manipulating Quirk, and that only opened up a myriad of new questions. Whose Quirk was it? Father Pucci's? If that turned out true, then why had such an unrelated man taken the time to affect him? If not, then why had he and Father Pucci been chosen as targets? Nothing made any sense. It was a line of thinking Izuku preferred not to pursue so early in the day.

Simply put, what happened last night was completely unorthodox, a totally unexplainable enigma even in today's superpowered society. And Izuku didn't know just how he felt about that yet.

"Good morning, Izuku. Did you sleep well?" His mother walked into the room in her nightgown, scratching the side of her face as she yawned. He didn't expect her to be up yet.

"Morning, Mom. I slept fine, yeah. What about you?"

"Oh, I got enough," she said and smiled, which judging from the circles of discolouration under her eyes was a barefaced lie. She grabbed a plate of her own and went to join her son at the table.

Leaning forward, the early-morning bleariness fled from her face as concern took over. "Izuku, are you sure you slept alright? It was really scary when you started screaming like that, I just didn't know what to do. You didn't have any more scary nightmares, did you?"

Izuku swallowed a mouthful of rice. So that's why she looked so tired. Inko had been so worried about him that she'd been unable to sleep right. If he had to guess, his mother probably hadn't gotten four hours. Guilt tugged at his chest as he realised the damage his outburst the night before had caused.

"No, it was only the one. I mean, I might have had another, but I doubt it since I didn't wake up screaming, plus there's that thing where your brain forgets most of a dream before you even wake up and then the rest except for the barest outlines after five or ten-"

Izuku felt an arm on his own pulling him back from his tangent and looked up to see his mother's smile. "Izu, sweetie, you're muttering again."

"O-Oh, sorry…" Izuku mumbled with a wobbly smile and growing blush.

"You don't have to apologise. It was you who asked me to stop you whenever you do it anyway, wasn't it?" After that, her face changed yet again. "I'm being deadly serious, honey. Anything, _anything_ _at_ _all_ that you need help with, you can show to me. I promise I'll do the best I can to help.

"You really scared me there, Izuku. When I heard you screaming like that, I-I didn't know what to do and I felt so, so _powerless_. I thought you might be dying. Even after I saw you weren't hurt at all, I just couldn't get it out of my head that my baby boy was in danger. You'll tell me if you ever feel like you're in danger, right, Izuku?"

Another blow to his heart. "I swear, Mom, nothing's wrong, and I promise I'd tell you if it was. I mean, I can't even remember what that first dream was about!" he laughed awkwardly. He didn't like lying like this, but telling his mother about the weirdly lucid dream and the man within it would undoubtedly bring even more restlessness that she definitely neither needed nor deserved. Besides, it wasn't like she could do anything, or needed to for that matter. What happened last night was all a dream. All a dream.

Izuku pushed away from the table and stood up. "I'm gonna go get ready in the bathroom now. I kind of took longer than I should have eating."

"Okay, honey, see you in a bit," Inko called after him. "Oh, and be careful if you take a shower! It's the first thing in the morning so it'll be colder than usual!"

* * *

Izuku stepped through the gates of his junior high, the pull of his bag filled with schoolbooks digging uncomfortably into his shoulders. Around him his schoolmates crowded in bundles of their social circles, eagerly drinking up every second until the bell summoned them for another day of slaving away at books and notepads. Yet Izuku joined none of them, opting to stay out of the way and snake a path through the crowd as quickly as possible. He was like a ghost going unnoticed by all, even the people he brushed against, as he finally slipped through the main door.

All except one, it seemed. Izuku's attention lapsed for only a moment, but it was long enough. He felt himself bump into something solid and staggered back a step. Upon looking up to apologise a fist curled around his collar and his breath hitched in his throat.

"Hey, Deku," Bakugo said. Midoriya could hear the sneer in the fiery blond's voice, "did you just try and push me? Are you looking to start shit?"

"N-N-No, Kacchan! I-I was just walking to class! I swear, I wouldn't have even thought to look at you!" The shorter teenager was already hard at work with his tried-and-true method of waving his arms in front of him much like an attempt to placate a wild animal. That could fire off explosions. And held him in blistering contempt since the tender age of four. Unfortunately, that only fanned the flames further.

"What?! You're saying I'm just fit to walk by like some nobody?! You think you're better than me?!" The taller boy's hair-trigger temper flared, as did the palms of his hands, at his ex-childhood friend's remark. Before Izuku could even attempt to fix it Katsuki shoved a palm an inch from his face, thick tendrils of acrid black smoke lapping at the green-haired teenager's bare skin as they seeped upwards to take a more permanent residence in the surrounding air.

Had Katsuki anger been a flame, then his usual contempt was a mere ember compared to the roaring furnace that the greenette's careless comment had stoked it up into. Control fled from Izuku's muscles as the bloody pinpricks of Katsuki's eyes settles on his own, sapping all strength from him as though meeting the gaze of some terrible, ancient beast of legend. But this was no beast, it was a spiky-haired teenager whose gaze was devoid of the childlike wonder and endearment that had overflowed from them years ago, replaced with the disdain born from a deadly concoction of pure skill and empty praise so potent that it had eroded all decency and empathy. Now the only thing left behind was an ego so grossly inflated that it considered an old childhood friend, merely a victim of poor fortune, a fit punching bag equivalent in worth to discarded waste by the roadside.

"Listen, you shithead Deku. You think you can just look down on me? Where are you even looking down from? I'm Katsuki goddamn Bakugo, the one guy from this cesspit of a middle school who's gonna rise above and get into UA, and the man who's gonna surpass All Might as the best Pro Hero of all time. I've got the brains and the Quirk to do the job right. You, on the other hand, are nothing but a Quirkless failure. Don't you ever, and I mean _ever_, forget that."

With that Katsuki took his leave, striding off towards the classroom and leaving Izuku propped up against the wall to compensate for his legs' sudden lack of structural integrity. Fingers ran through the tainted grassy curls and came back smudged with the residual soot of the blond's threat.

He forced down the uncomfortable lump in his throat. That had been close, too close for comfort; even with his… _excessive_ personality, Katsuki never really used his Quirk for more than intimidation, letting his knuckles and hangers-on to do the real damage. This time, though, Izuku could practically feel the malevolence in those crimson pits strangling him as the corporeal self just barely held itself back. Being so close to Katsuki's Quirk and actually knowing that he wanted to use it was a completely different experience to the more mundane bullying he'd grown accustomed to, and it was one he could safely say he didn't ever want to experience again.

Why? What had he done this time that had inspired a response so much more vitriolic than the norm? He hadn't implied Kacchan was weak or something, did he? Izuku pondered this as he made his way to class, keeping an extra-keen eye out for any glimpses of straw-coloured blurs or flashes of orange-white light. To his knowledge he hadn't done anything particularly noteworthy, at least no more than he always did. He'd only told Katsuki that if he hadn't bumped into him he wouldn't have even noticed him, so there was no way he'd been trying to start a fight or anything…

Then, as he was about to place his hand on the classroom door, it hit him. Of course, it was obvious with a little thought. '_Wouldn't have even thought to look at you_' translated to Kacchan-ese as '_your existence is not even worth acknowledging_'. Izuku cleaned his fingertips on his uniform with a resigned sigh. Why did Kacchan have to be so darn defensive?

Well, at least he'd made it out without any further bruising. He didn't think Kacchan would use explosion on him, but after the childhood they'd shared that was for from certain. With a deep inhale he pushed open the door and prepared himself for another draining day in the life of Izuku Midoriya.

* * *

_-Enrico Pucci-_

And so the day passed much like any other would. There were lessons, textbooks and notes on various flavours of academic disciplines, and before long the steady stream of knowledge was interrupted by the Westminster bell's chime, a wordless command the students were more than happy to follow. Soon after came more lessons and the eventual cleanup operation, which themselves finally lead to the blessed end of the day and the trip back home. As of now, dinner had been eaten and the clock's shorter hand drew ever closer to eleven, which seemingly meant that it wasn't far off time for Izuku to go to bed.

And of course, Pucci was present for the entire thing.

Pucci had reached an important conclusion about his current predicament; It appeared that upon his death, his soul had been transported into Izuku Midoriya's body. He began to suspect as much when he found himself in the exact same predicament as those brief minutes the night before when he had looked through the teenager's black-green eyes for the first time, and steadily the idea solidified itself throughout the day. The theory made even more sense when he considered how their first meeting had occurred only during Midoriya's slumber when the mind, and by extension the soul, was able to wander the most freely and create impossible sights such as that dreamscape. An odd truth to come to terms with, given that the Bible never mentioned anything about reincarnation. Then again, the Bible never mentioned anything about Stands and the ability to force the universe to loop back on itself either.

But why was he here, in the care of one unaware Izuku Midoriya, sharing a vessel with another soul as two roommates might share a bedroom? More to the point, why was Midoriya _still_ here? It didn't make sense for two separate souls to inhabit the same body, the weaker one, in this case undoubtedly the Japanese student, would surely be ejected. Whitesnake's memory discs couldn't be forced permanently into a body that still had a soul inhabiting it, he'd tried, which essentially proved that there was a finite capacity for soul stuff in a single vessel. Yet here he was, seeing out of Midoriya's eyes and interacting with the world with Midoriya's hands. Truly fascinating and perplexing in equal measure, but something to be contemplated at a later date. More important matters had taken up residence in the priest's mind.

First off, his host was a joke. Nay, a joke would have been funny at best and deserving of an exasperated eye roll at worst. What Izuku Midoriya was… well, his extensive vocabulary was put to good use in describing it. At every corner, at every turn of the head a fresh brat materialised out of whatever rank pit of Hades they had spawned from. They would belittle him in numerous ways, ranging from hushed whispers amongst gossiping circles of makeup-plastered girls to full-on jeering and physical abuse from some of the larger boys, chiefly the quill-haired blond from the start of the day.

Which brought him to what was probably the most important discovery of the day - the widespread existence of superhuman powers. It all started with an encounter with a crass child Izuku called Kacchan - or was it Katsuki? It mattered little - in the doorway. At first glance he appeared to be merely another impulsive teenager, securing his place in the hierarchy with shows of force against those weaker than them as the woefully short-sighted are wont to do. However, that all changed when a churning ball of smoke and flame appeared mere inches from his nose.

From that moment Pucci's attention was completely absorbed by what he had just witnessed. A Stand? Here? And a user so callously displaying his power for the world to see? Well, he couldn't have been any more pleased! Predicting the every move of such an impulsive caricature of a bully would be child's play, and manipulating those outcomes would be equally effortless. But then it started to go downhill. He was looking through Izuku's eyes at a blank chalkboard in the middle of a freshly filled class, simply pondering the best method to seize control of his newfound pawn when the teacher… detached his hand on a pair of cables and picked up a stick of chalk from across the room.

Enrico couldn't believe what his hosts' eyes were showing him. Another Stand user?! And they just went ahead and used their ability in front of an entire class! Most unbelievably of all, not a single student even batted an eye! It was as if they thought this was normal!

As the lesson proceeded on, though, understanding slowly began to dawn upon the spectating spirit, and jumbled puzzle pieces from earlier began to fix themselves together as answers came forth. As fate would have it the current lesson was modern history, and it just so happened that most, if not all, of modern history was deeply intwined with the emergence of the almost supernatural phenomenon known as Quirks. Pyrokinesis, flight, gigantification, teleportation, super strength and so many others too numerous to list had appeared a little over a hundred years ago, forever changing the way society functioned. Everything Izuku had said about these abilities began to make sense. Unfortunately, so did something else.

In any other situation Pucci would have been intrigued and elated in equal measure. The philosopher in him hungered for the chance to leap into consideration of the implications of the rise of Quirks, and what God's intention was when gifting so much of humanity with powers that could be immensely useful or terrifyingly destructive balanced simply on a person's chosen application of their innate skills. Not only that, but finding allies worthy of Whitesnake's gifts had been quite difficult. If what the professor said about four fifths of the population possessing these Quirks was true, then selecting strong minions would be orders of magnitude simpler.

This time, though, there was only a dawning horror. The speech had him thinking back to earlier, to what that Midoriya had asked him in the dreamscape about being a hero. Izuku was so timid, just about everyone looked down upon him, yet he could never used his own ability to retaliate or at least defend himself when threatened by others, could he? It was plainer than day to see, his host was part of the ill-fated twenty percent that were born completely average, a second-class citizen in a superpowered world.

How cruel! What an awful trick of fate, for the person he ended up with to be at such a heavy disadvantage. Pucci had suspected that the absence of a Quirk was something to be ashamed of and perhaps even shunned over during his short episode of information gathering, but never had he imagined that destiny would put the two of them up against such blatantly unfair odds.

And that wasn't even considering the year he was stuck in. 2134, one and a quarter centuries away from his own time! To think, so much time had passed in what was to him only minutes, maybe seconds. It left little hope of returning to scavenge what was left of his meticulously constructed network of Stand-wielding agents that survived the reset or the hoard of Stand discs he had spent so long assembling.

But there was still hope, wasn't there? Yes, even without a unique biological ability there were still paths to victory. Was not his presence in Midoriya's body adequate proof of such already? Fate had a plan for everyone. His vessel's lack of powers was not mere coincidence, nor was Enrico's appearance here in this time. The red strings of destiny still had plans for them, complex twists and turns and knots that he could tell would alter the shape of this futuristic world of abilities. Izuku truly was fortunate beyond his own comprehension to have him possessing his body. With his guidance the young boy would ascend beyond those who would dare to mock him and find another way forward. He would transform Midoriya into a fit vessel for their new destinies, now undoubtedly intertwined as closely as their souls.

If he could, Pucci would have smirked. After all, he knew better than anyone that being born with supernatural abilities was not the only way to go about obtaining them. All he needed was patience, time and cooperation, and judging from how Midoriya was busily brushing his teeth before his bathroom mirror, it seemed only a matter of minutes before he could begin.


End file.
